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Who owns the memory record an assistant builds about you?

Memory is a derived record about a person that no vendor document in this ledger assigns ownership of. OpenAI says a saved memory survives the deletion of the chat it came from. Microsoft describes remembering names, interests and goals. Whether that profile is the user's personal data, the vendor's work product, or both, is unsettled.

The verdict

Open question

No settled answer exists. The ledger poses the question, links the live debate, and does not answer it.

Key facts

What the sources say

Record ID
AVD-2026-0031
Kind
Open question
Jurisdiction
Global
Last verified
Added
  • OpenAI states that even if you delete a chat, any saved memories from it can still be used in future conversations.
  • Microsoft describes consumer Copilot remembering key details such as your name, interests and goals when personalisation is enabled.
  • Anthropic runs memory on by default for consumer plans and off by default on Team and Enterprise, where an owner must enable it.
  • GitHub deletes unused Copilot memory entries after 28 days and lets a user, a repository owner or an administrator delete them.

Figures

Every number, with who measured it and when

  1. 28 days

    Automatic deletion of unused memory entries at one vendor

    GitHub docs, Copilot memory, primary source, as of .

What it changes

For a buyer or a workplace AI policy

A memory store is a profile, and the ordinary controls do not reach it. Deleting a conversation does not necessarily delete what was learned from it, and an export of chats is not an export of the profile. A workplace policy that covers conversations should name memory separately, say who may switch it on, and say what happens to the record when a person leaves.

Sources

What this record was verified against

  1. OpenAI Help Center, memory FAQPrimary · 15 September 2026
  2. Microsoft, privacy FAQ for Microsoft CopilotPrimary · 15 September 2026
  3. Claude support, how Claude's memory worksPrimary · 15 September 2026
  4. GitHub docs, Copilot memoryPrimary · 15 September 2026

Related

Records that sit beside this one

Cite this record

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0, with attribution. The record ID AVD-2026-0031 is permanent and is never reused.

In a sentence
According to the GAGE AI Vendor Data Ledger (as of 15 September 2026), who owns the memory record an assistant builds about you?.
APA
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). (2026). Who owns the memory record an assistant builds about you?. AI Vendor Data Ledger. Retrieved 15 September 2026, from https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-vendor-data-ledger/records/AVD-2026-0031-who-owns-the-memory-record
MLA
"Who owns the memory record an assistant builds about you?." AI Vendor Data Ledger, GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education), 15 September 2026, https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-vendor-data-ledger/records/AVD-2026-0031-who-owns-the-memory-record.
Chicago
GAGE (Global Academy of Generative-AI Education). "Who owns the memory record an assistant builds about you?." AI Vendor Data Ledger. Last modified 15 September 2026. https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-vendor-data-ledger/records/AVD-2026-0031-who-owns-the-memory-record.
Permalink
https://www.gage.academy/tools/ai-vendor-data-ledger/records/AVD-2026-0031-who-owns-the-memory-record

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